


be foolish with me

by pixiepower



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Cinderella Fusion, Alternate Universe - Royalty, M/M, Magic, Romance, [josh voice] gentle sexy, joshua hong for remake of cinderella (1997) sign my petition
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-17 19:54:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28730787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pixiepower/pseuds/pixiepower
Summary: Minghao’s hand is swept into the prince’s, his large, warm palm cradling Minghao’s thin fingers. Another hand, broad and steady, comes to rest in the dip of Minghao’s waist, and Minghao prays his face is not as easy to read as his heartbeat.How foolish it is, to melt in the hands of a prince.“Hello,” Joshua says coyly, mirth dancing over his features, cheeks round with a smile and brown eyes sparkling. It’s becoming. Minghao shouldn’t have come. “I don’t believe we’ve had the pleasure of meeting.”
Relationships: Hong Jisoo | Joshua/Xu Ming Hao | The8
Comments: 21
Kudos: 152
Collections: Seventeen Rare Pair Fest: 2 Rare 2 Pair





	be foolish with me

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [SVTRarePairFest2](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/SVTRarePairFest2) collection. 



> title from rodgers and hammerstein’s _cinderella_.  
>  __
>
>>  _> why do you come to visit me tonight?  
>  > i just knew i would find you in the same little chair, in the pale pink mist of a foolish dream.  
>  > i am being foolish.  
>  > then be foolish with me. what would you dream of?  
>  > an invitation to the ball, i guess._
> 
> this is a true [ao3 tag voice] cinderella fusion, with elements taken from many adaptations: _ye xian,_ rodgers and hammerstein’s cinderella (1997 tv movie and 2013 broadway revival), and ella enchanted, chiefly, but most importantly it is inspired by seventeen, whose gifts feel like magic to me.

Minghao doesn’t mean to find out that there is going to be a ball, because he is not meant to find out.

Minghao is meant to finish his chores, to go into town and to return, arms full of the myriad articles his father’s wife has requested, and then disappear into his bedroom for the rest of the night. At home, Minghao is meant to be neither seen nor heard, so making his errands last as long as possible is often the goal. Exercise at least some semblance of control over his life, where he has none elsewhere.

“You know, I could use a hand if you’re in need of a job,” the shopkeeper shouts as Minghao nudges the door open with a foot, the bells strung together like heads of garlic in the doorway.

“Thank you,” Minghao tosses over his shoulder, cheek balancing his precarious pile of goods, unspoken apology clinging to his thanks like lichen, “I’ll be back in a few days!”

It’s a symbol of her generosity that the shop owner simply sighs and waves him off. 

It sits on his shoulders like the weight of a stone to know that he’s been spotted in town enough times with his father and stepmother that there are people who look at him with something he pretends doesn’t approach pity.

Minghao misses when his mother’s best friend lived in town, her daughters hardly up to his waist, clinging to his legs and begging him to draw their portraits, to paint out scenes from their favorite tales, to take careful brushes to their faces and bloom flowers over their cheeks and along their smooth, excited brows. But she moved away when her husband got work in the next kingdom over, and now one more color in his mother’s palette has run dry.

A windchime in the front alcove of a stall catches the breeze, and Minghao stands in front of it, closing his eyes and feeling the sun caress his face warmly, the wind flutter his hair, the gentle music of the wood and charms of the chimes curl into his ears. The late-spring day is quite beautiful, at least out here where he is alone and answers to no one.

“Watch out!” shouts a voice, and Minghao gasps, turning to see if someone needs help, only to watch a white horse come galloping through the market, its hooves beating and kicking up dust as it hurtles at breakneck speed toward him.

Minghao drops his parcels, running toward the horse in the hopes that he can divert it away from the shop stalls. One of his hands flies out, reaching for the horse’s mane, fingertips brushing a fancy braid as she tosses her head anxiously, but Minghao can’t get a grip on her, soothing murmurs seeming to calm her if only a little.

“It’s all right, it’s all right,” Minghao repeats as she dances in place, trying to herd her out of the market and toward the road again.

Her eyes are black as night, with long eyelashes and an intelligent way. She is positively lustrous, her coat and mane shiny and maintained, and her broken lead bearing golden finishes and—is that an _emerald—_

“His Highness’ horse!” comes a cry, followed by a melodic whistle, which the horse responds to with a whinny and a snort. 

She pushes her nose against Minghao’s hand briefly and then runs off at a canter toward a heaving figure all the way down at the end of the road, pants dirty with mud and jacket some distance away in the street. Some poor attendant, he assumes, whose relief at securing what Minghao now knows to be the _prince’s_ horse is underscored by the way he grins and runs his fingers through her mane, face pressed into her neck and hands gentle on her strong shoulder. Minghao is glad at least that she is well looked after. 

Another attendant, this one in much fancier attire, leaps down from the seat of the carriage to the step, unfurling a scroll of paper and clearing his throat as he prepares to make some sort of proclamation. He eyes Minghao with consideration but says nothing, waiting as people gather at his feet. Minghao makes his way back to the stall, where he stoops to gather his cast-aside packages.

“Thank you, Myungho,” the vendor says with a wobble in his voice. “If that mare had taken down my wares I’d be done for.”

“It’s no trouble, sajangnim,” Minghao says with a gentle smile, scooping up his parcels and stacking them into his arms once again.

The vendor hobbles over to Minghao, steadying his pile as Minghao straightens, then slipping the cord of a pouch over his wrist. “As thanks.”

“No, no, there’s no need—”

“I insist,” the vendor says, patting Minghao’s arm kindly. “You deserve a life of your own.”

Minghao shuffles his parcels and tries to bow, but the vendor laughs, then pauses, then gasps.

“What is it?”

“The prince is giving a ball,” he says incredulously. “You’re young, go see!”

Now that is curious. Minghao turns slowly, wandering in what he thinks is the correct direction back toward the royal carriage.

“—anyone with an invitation and suitable attire may attend! In celebration of his Highness, Prince Joshua!”

And there is the _snap_ of the scroll shutting, and a commotion on the other side of Minghao’s eyeline, his pile of boxes and parcels and items too high to see past.

“I’ve got one!” “Oh, it’s so _lovely!”_ “Maybe they’ll let us keep them!” “I hope my dress still fits!”

The distribution of invitations, then. Minghao tries to shift his packages to one arm, tongue caught between his teeth, straining his neck to one side to hopefully catch a glimpse of the attendant giving them out, but the pile sways dangerously and Minghao gasps, trying to rebalance, until the tower rights itself suddenly, steadying with a pressure from the other side.

“Be careful,” a warm voice says, “These look important.”

“Thank you,” Minghao sighs with relief.

“I’m going to take my hand off now.” A gentle, stifled laugh.

Minghao laughs, too. “I’m ready.”

The weight withdraws, but when Minghao turns a few moments later, once he’s sure he’s steady again, there’s no sign of who helped him.

What’s worse, there’s also no sign of the attendant, or the carriage at all. Gone with the breeze, as though they were never there at all. Disappointment washes over Minghao like rapids pulling him down the river, and he finds himself missing something he never had.

In his lifetime Minghao has wished for a lot of things he doesn’t wish for anymore, but now he finds himself disarmed by the fact that, for a brief but vivid moment, he grew very close to wishing for something he had never wished for before. He wonders what it’s like to attend a ball, what it’s like to be face to face with a prince, for the whole walk home, where he quietly unloads his parents’ packages at the entry to their bedroom.

“Myungho-yah!” a shrill voice hollers.

Minghao’s shoulders sag at the sound of his stepmother’s voice. “Yes?” he calls warily.

“Go fetch more water! Dahee is going to draw a bath and I expect dinner to be ready when we’re finished!”

“Yes, baba,” Minghao responds obediently, deferent to his father, slinging the large vessel over his back and heading out with no small measure of relief.

The river is past the back garden, on the other side of the field. Close, for all intents and purposes, close enough that Minghao can spare a moment to kneel at the bottom of the willow behind their house, unearth the clay pot beneath the soil there, and place the vendor’s pouch inside. The weight of the coins drops it straight to the bottom, and Minghao closes his eyes, touches his forehead to the roots, and tells his mother he loves her.

When Minghao gets to the river, he rolls up his pants and dips his feet into the water, sighing with relief as he leans back and tips his face up to try to absorb the last vestiges of pure afternoon sunlight before it fully dips over the horizon any moment. The jug lies empty to his side, not forgotten, just cast aside for the time being.

“Minghaooooo.”

Only one person singsongs his name with such affection anymore, and Minghao sits up, pulling his feet out of the stream and tucking them under himself on the bank to make space for a small group of fish to ride the current down the river. One fish stops in front of Minghao, using the strength in his fins to fight the gentle flow of the water.

“There’s a ball tonight,” Soonyoung burbles, beautiful golden-orange fins fluttering in the water. He’s smaller than usual, more goldfish than carp. Minghao thinks he might fit in the palm of one hand today.

“So I’ve heard,” Minghao replies, “Why are you so small today?”

A jet of water hits Minghao just above the eye, aimed impeccably and wetting his hair, which drips over his face. 

“Soonyoung!”

There’s a splash, and another, and then all of a sudden a whirlpool curls into the gentle stream of the river, tearing water into a torrent of white, which lifts and lifts until it is nearly Minghao’s height. The air whips and _whooshes,_ a small hurricane of blinding water and wind, until very suddenly before him stands a very human Soonyoung in full manner and strong stature, wearing fish-black pants and an orange tunic, sopping wet and beaming.

“Soonyoung!” Minghao cries again, stumbling down the bank of the river to hurl himself into an embrace, uncaring that Soonyoung’s dampness seeps into his own clothes.

Soonyoung has always been his closest friend, when Minghao was too young to realize that not everyone knew a talking fish, and even rarer, talking fish who could transform themselves into boys, and ever since. His mother used to walk him down to the river and they would spend the afternoons with Soonyoung, chasing through the reeds and dancing in the grass and always, always returning to the water, where Soonyoung would dive back into the stream and promise to come back tomorrow. Minghao would promise him back, and has never broken that promise.

The happiness on Soonyoung’s face, the way the corners of his eyes turn to giddy arcs, is still so familiar, yet his demeanor is unmatched by any memory Minghao has of him, almost as though he has more surprises in store.

“I’ve missed your hugs,” Soonyoung laughs, allowing himself to be preened over and squished every which way by Minghao’s fond hands.

Delighted, Minghao replies, “And I’ve missed hugging you! I thought you couldn’t—anymore—” He gestures to Soonyoung’s body.

“I’ve been saving up my magic.”

Minghao holds Soonyoung at arm’s length, hands wrapped warmly around his forearms. “What do you mean, saving it up?”

Soonyoung purses his lips, pink mouth halfway to a pout. “You heard there is a ball tonight,” he says, and Minghao’s disappointment crashes back into his body like a horse at full speed.

“Yes. But I didn’t get an invitation. And even if I did, my father would never let me go.”

“But do you _want_ to?” Soonyoung asks, shaking off Minghao’s hands to hold them in his own wet ones. His grip is slippery but fierce, like if he lets Minghao go it means more than he knows.

Of course Minghao wants to. He didn’t know how much he wanted it until he found out he couldn’t have it.

That’s the trouble with dreams. They appear when you least expect them, and quickly become impossible to shake.

“And what if I would like to go to a big fancy party and dance with a prince?”

With exaggerated flourish but no sense of malice Soonyoung swoons. “And then he’ll fall in love with you.”

Minghao flushes. “He won’t fall in love with me, Soonyoung.”

“But how can you be certain if you don’t go?”

Soonyoung takes a deep breath, slips his fingers between Minghao’s, and closes his eyes. The temperature drops immediately, and wind whips around them. Minghao gasps, his lungs straining for a good deep breath, and when he does, the air stops moving, then dips back up to the waning warmth from before. Soonyoung pulls his hands away from Minghao’s, rubs his palms together, and produces seemingly from thin air a blue envelope with a gold seal. The envelope is torn, the seal broken and the flap crumpled, but when Soonyoung hands it to Minghao his face reads nothing but pride.

“Now you have an invitation!” he crows, pleased.

Minghao turns it over in both hands, holding it up to the sun. It’s as solid as anything he’s ever held in his life. “But—how—?”

“I told you, I’ve been saving up! It’s not perfect, but it’s enough, because I have to—”

“Have to what?” Minghao’s voice comes out thick, chewy black licorice and emotion. Soonyoung’s skin is starting to shimmer at the cheekbones like scales. “Soonyoung, is this—promise me you’re not giving anything up for me.”

Soonyoung is quiet, for once.

“Soonyoung, please. If you can be this, I don’t want you to—”

“Minghao, you are my dearest friend. I have always been of the river. You are the only reason I have ever wanted to step out,” Soonyoung says. He takes Minghao’s hand and rubs his cheek against it, smooth in one direction, along the grain of his scales. “You are always doing for others. This isn’t a favor. This is a gift, as your friendship has been for me. This is the least you deserve. Will you let me do this for you?”

Minghao sighs. When Soonyoung sets his mind to something, there is no stopping him. He can be impulsive, but there is every indication that he well and truly thought this through, that he wants to do this. Wants to do this for Minghao.

“Thank you,” Minghao says in a small voice. “I don’t know how I’ll ever thank you enough.”

“Well, don’t thank me yet,” Soonyoung laughs, and tosses the invitation into the low grass just off the bank for safekeeping, then takes Minghao’s hands again.

Soonyoung rolls his shoulders, stretches his neck, and exhales. It takes him longer to focus this time, but the first success must have bolstered his confidence, because it doesn’t take nearly as long for the temperature to change. This time, it spikes: a burst of warm air surrounds him, and he finds himself lifted off the ground. Panic grips him, but Soonyoung doesn’t let go, hanging onto him like the string of a kite, and a blinding light sweeps through Minghao’s field of vision, so golden it must be impossible that anyone in the city wouldn’t be able to see it.

When the heat and light dissipate and his feet touch ground again, Minghao gasps, fingers trailing along the gossamer where his canvas work shirt lay before. Minghao turns on the spot, feeling the fabric move light as anything, fluttering behind him, watching golden fish swim midair. Never in his life has Minghao held anything like this, much less been in a position to wear it.

The only thing that remains of his previous garb is his mother’s necklace, beads nestled in the hollow of his throat.

Soonyoung looks at Minghao’s hand, fingertips brushing the pink glass, and smiles softly. “I wouldn’t dare touch it. And it works so beautifully.”

There is a distinct feeling settling into his chest that sounds awfully shrill, hissing into his ear that he doesn’t deserve it. That he knows his place, and ought to stay there, not at the royal gardens in finery that will dissolve into scales like confetti when the night is over.

When Minghao whirls, fabric fanning out as he turns, to look at him again, Soonyoung is brushing his hands together, water droplets and something dazzling, leftover, and beautiful shaking out from between them. “Well, I don’t think there’s much more for me to do here.”

“What do you mean?” Minghao asks, feeling suddenly frantic.

Soonyoung laughs, face kind with it. “What, you expected me to go with you?”

“Well, no, but—”

“Don’t mourn something before you’ve even got it, Minghao.”

Only his appreciation for Soonyoung’s gifts and friendship prevent the spark of indignance from fanning into defensiveness. Somehow it feels impossible to be angry in an outfit this fine.

To be fair, Minghao doesn’t know what else Soonyoung may know of loss. If it is anything like what Minghao knows, it is far too much. Soonyoung will forgive him for wanting to hold on too-tight to what few things he does have.

“How am I supposed to go home like this? The water…”

Soonyoung hums and rubs his hands together. “I have enough to get your jug home and to cover for you. But you’ll have to go back in through the window, probably. Do you have your key?”

“Yes, but…”

Clicking his tongue, Soonyoung cuts Minghao off. “No buts. Unless perhaps it belongs to the prince.”

Minghao’s ears burn hot. Leave it to Soonyoung to remind him that the prince is a man, with a body. Minghao probably would do better to forget that part altogether.

“Take care not to get any of your gifts wet once you leave the river,” Soonyoung urges with a blessed change of subject, as though he just thought of it. “It’ll disintegrate. And my magic is powerful, but only enough to last until midnight. The fireworks will remind you when your time is up.”

“So many rules,” Minghao laughs distractedly, fingertips toying with the chiffon-thin material, soft and translucent. He is transfixed.

Soonyoung shrugs. “That’s magic for you. Strange and mysterious.”

“I would have just said strange.”

Waving his hands in a supernatural manner that Minghao thinks is probably supposed to be threatening, Soonyoung sticks out his tongue. “Ungrateful.”

Minghao laughs, puffing out his cheeks and pursing his lips in an imitation of a goldfish, and Soonyoung laughs, too. He, of course, _is_ grateful, that Soonyoung would use his gifts to show Minghao such kindness, that he would give part of himself to give Minghao the chance to find part of himself as well. But as Soonyoung laughs and moves to step out of the river to fetch the water vessel, he is also grateful, after all, that they can be their whole selves and still so like this, still playful as they were when they were children, still someone to turn to in their time of need.

Even if that means something very, very different now.

•

When Minghao hands his creased invitation to the court attendant for scrutiny at the gates, he wonders if anyone else’s hands shook like this, if he can pass it off as excitement rather than nerves.

Everyone around him is giggling, bounding through the gates arm in arm with friends, bearing gifts or glittering jewelry. Minghao can readily imagine them standing in a room full of beautiful outfits, gowns on a rack fit to bursting like rainbows through clouds, color after color and bolt after bolt of finery, just a matter of choice. Or, just as likely, holding their breath and complaining about stuck pins for weeks on end as tailors fuss over their measurements, debating trims and what kind of furs to drape over their arms, never mind the warm late-spring breeze.

Minghao knows Soonyoung’s handiwork has an elegant touch, that he won’t look as out of place as he feels, but the feeling still lingers. He lets the big, wrought-iron gates loom around him, trellis and topiary to either side leering like groomed gargoyles, and he realizes, quite suddenly, why he feels so out of place.

No one else seems to be alone.

The attendant hands Minghao back his invitation with a perfunctory bow. “Enjoy your evening.”

A deep breath, and there’s no putting it off any longer. He moves through the gate with a step, then another, and the threshold grows more distant, a swell of music getting louder as he wanders with soft crunches down the graveled walkway.

He doesn’t know what to expect when he bursts through the hedges and emerges at the top of the stair, but it certainly isn’t a kaleidoscope of dresses and suits whirling like skipped stones over a break in the gardens. It’s a palette painted rich and beautiful, colors blending into shades he’s never seen outside his mother’s paintings, changing and transforming before his eyes can even adjust. Skirts swirl, the billowing fabric calling flowers onto the dance floor, and Minghao suddenly understands why they wanted to hold this outside rather than in some marble mausoleum of a ballroom. The gardens are a marvel in themselves, gorgeous and lush even as the evening picks up, the smell of blooms in the air, floral and heady. Everything seems nearly as magical as the shimmering fabric Soonyoung had twirled out of thin air, nearly as enveloping, nearly as surreal.

It’s all so much. Minghao’s hand finds his mother’s necklace, rolling the beads between his fingers. His eyes are drawn down to a break in the throng, waves of color parted, leaving a streak of bright white floor, at the end of which stands a young man. A very handsome young man, who is staring up at him from the foot of the stairs like he’s never seen a person before.

Oh, God.

A smirk is half-frozen on his face, eyes wide, glowing in light from head to toe. The angle casts his face into moonlight, and Minghao’s breath dies in his lungs as the prince turns to him in full, chest bare and shining and toned in his low-cut suit jacket, something translucent fluttering just under the edges. Minghao doesn’t let his eye linger anywhere too long for fear he will simply dematerialize as easily as his own outfit appeared. All he sees is shimmering sternum, waist cinched small with a cummerbund, broad shoulders, slim cut trousers, dazzling smile.

Golden crown atop soft, loose hair. 

Heat sears up Minghao’s skin, fire licking through his bloodstream. He has heard of the prince, of course, and his _reputation,_ but setting sight on him in all his navy blue and golden glory—

His dance partner is trying valiantly to regain his attention to no avail, and she huffs loudly as she sweeps away, green skirts swishing behind her dramatically. Relatedly or otherwise, his smile broadens and he holds out a gloved hand toward Minghao in invitation.

Minghao’s heart is thundering so loudly he thinks the prince will be able to hear it, each step he descends simply serving to tighten the knot in his stomach more and more until all that’s left is a devil’s thread. His feet lay flat finally, golden fish swimming atop his slippers, and he sweeps into a bow, gaze downcast in the hopes that the prince’s eyes are perhaps soft with drink and miss all the redness flushing up his skin.

When he straightens, the prince is coming out of his own bow, but his eyes are roving Minghao’s face, curious and attentive. Of course. What luck.

Not one beat later Minghao’s hand is swept into the prince’s, his large, warm palm in his suede-soft glove cradling Minghao’s thin fingers. Another hand, broad and steady, comes to rest in the dip of Minghao’s waist, and Minghao prays his face is not as easy to read as his heartbeat.

How foolish it is, to melt in the hands of a prince.

“Hello,” Joshua says coyly, mirth dancing over his features, cheeks round with a smile and brown eyes sparkling. It’s becoming. Minghao shouldn’t have come. “I don’t believe we’ve had the pleasure of meeting.”

“Stole the words from my mouth,” Minghao mutters before he can stop himself.

Joshua laughs, a low, purposeful chuckle, guiding Minghao toward the middle of the floor as the music picks up. “Though of course the pleasure is mine.”

 _It must always be,_ Minghao thinks. He still can’t bring himself to keep Joshua’s gaze.

At his wrists flare ruffles, a tutu of chiffon that feels like silk spun soft against Minghao’s own wrists, but Joshua’s gloved hand is firm. Cocksure. Contradictory.

Minghao doesn’t know how to make conversation with a prince. Luckily Joshua seems to be well practiced in it, holding up both ends of the conversation with an easy smile as he coaxes careful answers out of Minghao.

 _Have you ever been to a party like this?_ No, nothing like this.

 _Thank you for dancing with me._ Did Minghao have a choice? And even if he did, would he have made a different one?

Joshua’s attention is solely on Minghao, and he glitters with curiosity more open than Minghao expected from a prince. Minghao’s ears feel hot, and he has to expend some effort to stifle his smile. The attention of a prince is intoxicating, and Joshua is impossible not to look at, handsome and gentle and utterly luminous, the party flushing the crowns of his cheeks prettily.

_Are you enjoying yourself?_

Minghao isn’t sure how to answer that without incriminating himself. Yes. Unequivocally yes. It’s nearly terrifying how much he’s enjoying himself, how much he never wants it to end. Even after only one dance?

Even after only one dance.

Minghao breathes in deeply, finds Joshua’s crescented eyes with his own, and lets his smile alight on his face after all, the glow of a lightning bug flickering into solidity. “I’m having a wonderful time.”

If this is the only dance he gets, he’s going to make the most of it.

But the music changes, and Joshua doesn’t make any move to change partners, first for one song, then another, until Minghao’s chest and ears are filled with nothing but music and conversation and laughter. After an unfathomable amount of songs the nerves start to wear off, the power of the wrinkle at the bridge of Joshua’s nose when he laughs at one of Minghao’s comments doing much to fuel his energy.

“—you must be kidding.”

“No, I’m not!” Joshua insists, “One flight too many and suddenly the banisters weren’t smooth anymore. All wrought iron. I was devastated.”

Minghao giggles, and doesn’t second-guess it.

A new dance is announced, and Joshua’s face lights up, impossibly more beautiful. “I love this one. Do you know it?”

The music starts to swell, and something deep in Minghao’s memory awakens, his childhood feet and Soonyoung’s, stepping in time to the folk song at the edges of the field. It’s a partner dance, intended for a group. The rhythm is familiar but the instrumentation new, his mother’s hum in a different voice. “I think so. It’s been a long time since I’ve danced it, though.”

“Don’t worry,” Joshua says, lifting the back of Minghao’s hand to his lips. “I’ll help.”

Partners line up, and the skin on Minghao’s arms is raised with gooseflesh under the thin fabric of his outfit, the tingling spot where his hand met Joshua’s mouth its warm origin. Measure after measure, the rhythm picks up, and Minghao’s hands meet Joshua’s again and again, the beating of waves against a shore. Joshua is mouthing reminders, but Minghao finds that his steps fall into place even after all this time.

Golden fish swim on golden slippers, on soft, silvery-blue chiffon like silken clouds, as Minghao is whirled around the dance floor. As Joshua dances, smooth and sure in his princely way, his smile widens. Minghao wonders if it is because his own smile has burst so wide over his face. The night wind is at his back, fabric fluttering like a cape behind him as they dance together, as if to say, _pick up your feet, there is magic happening._ He doesn’t want to move so quickly as to miss it.

Minghao is spun out, the momentum and choreography of the partner dance reeling him into the line so swiftly that his hand smarts with the loss of Joshua’s like twine tugged too fast out of his palm. The floor spins with skirts and capes and color, a carousel of lavishness, and all Minghao can do is turn his head in a feeble attempt to find Joshua among the fray. 

Minghao is traded from partner to partner, everything moving too fast for him to get a bearing on Joshua from here, and he closes his eyes to try and center himself. Undoubtedly he will be smiling at some lovely face when Minghao opens them, anyway.

“Found you,” is murmured suddenly over his ear, and Minghao’s eyes snap open, finding himself palm to palm and cheek to cheek with Joshua again. 

He stumbles, chest pressing against Joshua’s, and rights himself with a wobbly breath as the song draws to a close.

“Dizzy?” Joshua asks, the smile in his eyes fading gently into concern. He tugs off his glove, suede between his teeth, and moves as if to touch Minghao’s face. 

Panic spikes through him. “They wring you out like washing at these royal parties, don’t they?” he counters, vision swimming in rainbow scales and the smell of flowers. Sensation narrows to the point where Joshua’s hand settles. It finds the dip of his waist over the thin gossamer, and Minghao tries not to count each whorl of his fingertips, five points of warmth like stars.

“Honestly, they do,” Joshua says, then presses his lips together in self-admonishment. _Ah._ He wasn’t meant to say that. The first crack in the veneer splits further, spidering out until Minghao can see something glowing through the seams. “Would you like to sit down?”

Minghao worries the inside of his cheek between his teeth. If he tells the truth and says yes, is this the end of this moment, sharp tailor’s scissors on an invisible string between them? Joshua’s eyes wander, one hand still at Minghao’s hip, and Minghao remains quiet.

“I have an idea. Come with me.”

It’s decided, then. Joshua’s eyes find Minghao’s gaze again, and he offers his hand once more as though to dance, broad palms and square fingers bare in the moonlight.

Despite his better judgement, Minghao takes it. 

Joshua’s hand closes around Minghao’s, and suddenly he’s tugged off the edge of the dance floor toward the gardens, off limits to guests. They approach tall hedges with guards flanking, and the sweet air only grows thicker as the guards bow to Joshua, breaking them through some invisible barrier, his crown the key and their entwined fingers Minghao’s invitation.

After a few turns around hedges like spires, Joshua slows and they burst bodily into a carefully manicured section of garden. Flowers are everywhere, blooming even at this time of night, and the air is surprisingly not cloying. Every breath fills his lungs with a dreamy floral scent, the night-fresh air crisp with water from the fountain in the center of the clearing, cobblestones shining where gravel could have been poured. A rainbow of blossoms twinkle in his vision. Minghao has never seen anything like it.

It’s the most magical thing Minghao has ever seen.

“Do you like it?” Joshua asks like he truly wants to know the answer.

Minghao turns slowly on the spot, taking in the lanterns, the benches, the meticulously designed and manicured garden all they can see until the hedges surrounding it touch the sky.

“I like to come here when I want privacy,” Joshua confesses.

“It’s beautiful,” Minghao says. He is immensely touched that Joshua would share this with him. “It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

Joshua’s smile grows, softens as he looks at Minghao like butter in its dish in summer. “Yeah,” he says, tucking his smile into his cheeks.

Minghao feels that telltale heat flaring up his cheeks again. “You aren’t afforded a lot of privacy? Even as a prince?”

Joshua sighs, lean figure crumpling into the carved stone seat of a bench. Exhaustion seems to catch up with him when he does, as though now that he’s stopped moving his body has decided to tuck in for the night. He leans down and takes off his shoes, sighing again, this time with relief as he flexes his feet and sets his shoes beside him on the bench, shiny black like the eyes of a horse. “I’m not afforded _any_ privacy. _Especially_ as a prince.”

Minghao removes his own shoes as well, setting his slippers next to Joshua’s shoes and marveling at the soothing feeling of the smooth stone underfoot. His own shoulders relax with the luxury of informality, and the dance-dizziness fades into the night, casting everything into a dreamy daze instead.

“That’s awful. Why not?”

“Everything is laid out for me as though I’m not capable of making decisions on my own. This whole ball was not-so-subtly aimed at finding me a betrothed,” Joshua says with thinly veiled distaste. “But I am not so sheltered that I don’t know what people think of me. I know my reputation, I know the perception is that I’m…” he clears his throat, “...promiscuous. Noncommittal. I know what I look like, and how people look at me. I’ve certainly had my fun, being _that_ Josh, but it’s not a persona I can sustain forever.”

Minghao blinks slowly, watching Joshua lie back on the bench, legs dangling over the edge, his ankles small in his long socks where the hem of his pants rides up his leg. The blue velveteen softly crinkles at his knees, gathering like a blanket draped over his body. He looks young, and handsome, and his face is creased with burden.

“That’s—he is what people expect of me, so I suppose it was just easier to fall into it than to tell them I never wanted that. Make true a self-fulfilling prophecy rather than confess to my advisors and my mother that everybody wants the Prince but nobody wants Joshua because nobody in this kingdom knows who that is.”

Minghao lets his eyes rove Joshua’s face, find in its peaks and valleys his honesty. It had seemed so easy to be a prince, to be what everyone else said he must be: a simple-minded, pretty, rich boy with no cares in the world, where in reality he is only two of those things. His cares run deeper than he admits, so deep he’s afraid to show them to anyone, to hope that someone might give him the chance to be himself.

Until tonight. 

Until tonight, Minghao was the same way.

He wonders what Joshua sees in him to make this feel so easy. If he feels the way Minghao feels, faced with a beautiful stranger who makes him want to be honest. If he just likes being together, being so themselves because they have no expectations.

Someone ought to see the real Joshua, Minghao thinks. He is lucky that he gets the chance for even a hair of it. Maybe it will get left behind, tangled in the pearl comb of Minghao’s fingers, once Minghao wakes up and all of this has faded away.

“Then why confess it to me?”

Moonlit, haloed in the soft glow of the scattered lanterns, Joshua’s eyelashes cast shadows on the soft curves of his cheeks. “You’re… you’re different.”

“You don’t know me,” Minghao laughs.

“Maybe not, but—” Joshua’s eyes open. Starlight is reflected in them, a twinkling swirl like cream poured in dark steeped tea. “—doesn’t it feel like we do? Like we know each other already?”

Minghao’s heart claws its way up his throat, threatening to sing a song Minghao didn’t think he knew. Because it does. It does feel like they know each other, like they’ve known one another their whole lives and simply fell into this moment.

“I saw you, and you were…” Joshua laughs, a breathless thing, starting again, “When we spoke, and we danced, it was so immediate. You were so open. You seemed so… accepting, and genuinely so, not as a means to an end, and I thought that… I don’t know. I thought I might as well take a chance to show who I really am to at least one person, so at least I could know that I tried to find someone who would like me for me, for the parts of myself no one else knows. All I want is to make an honest connection. And… I thought, _I can’t stand it knowing this man is in front of me and I didn’t at least try to show him the real me._

“I looked at you, and experienced firsthand how you countered being overwhelmed with wit, with kindness and patience. There is something so different about you,” Joshua repeats. “It makes me want to be myself. Softer. Gentler.” Joshua pauses again. “Not scare you away.”

“I’m not so easily frightened, Joshua,” Minghao says, hoping it is convincing enough in the face of Joshua’s boldfaced candor.

Joshua glances at Minghao. After a moment, he smiles. “No, you’re not.”

The way Joshua looks at Minghao is nigh unreadable. 

Minghao has no reason to believe that Joshua _knows_ anything, that he knows where Minghao is from, that he knows that Minghao isn’t everything he thinks he is, but he feels seen through anyway, like Joshua is halving him like a pomegranate, spilling the seeds along the floor and letting his hands drip with it. He half wants to shy away and half reel in closer, spoon out seeds himself and watch them disappear over Joshua’s pink tongue.

For Joshua to say those things to him with such comfort is the privilege of a prince, to speak his heart to a stranger with equal parts nerves and confidence and trust that Minghao will receive it with cupped hands and surefootedness. He will, of course. He can’t imagine turning away such a gift.

Minghao turns his body away instead, hopefully hiding his flush in the cool mist from the fountain spray, running his hand over the ridged stone backs of the goldfish sculptures from which water pours. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, thanking Soonyoung for the beaded scales over his heart and stone ones beneath his fingertips.

“How did you know?”

“Hm?”

Joshua’s voice is still gentle, still aimed toward the endless, starlit sky. “That the fountain is for wishing.”

Running a delicate thumb over the brow of a fountain fish, Minghao laughs quietly. “I didn’t.” He opens his eyes and turns toward Joshua, whose eyes have closed. He looks angelic, almost like he’s sleeping. “I was thanking a friend.”

Joshua opens his eyes, then, propping himself up on an elbow to look at Minghao in earnest. “Gratitude is like a wish you spend on someone else.”

“How do you figure?”

“You expend the energy otherwise thinking of yourself on someone who did you a kindness. That’s selfless.”

“It’s not selfless, it’s payment in kind. The real selflessness is doing without the expectation of reward, not even gratitude. And besides,” Minghao says readily, “it's not enough to think good things. You have to say good things. Do good things. That’s the real kindness.”

Joshua seems to ruminate on this as he pushes himself up. “And what did your friend do for you?” he asks curiously.

What did Soonyoung do, other than everything? Minghao gazes down at his bare feet, imagining his golden slippers shimmering under the blue moonlight, flecked with droplets from the fountain, fish swimming as they always should. He turns back to the fountain, feeling the chiffon shift over his shoulders with half a mind to leap into the water rather than divulge secrets that only half belong to him.

“Helped me prepare for your ball,” Minghao decides upon.

“Well, then,” a quiet voice murmurs. Slowly there is a body cradling behind Minghao’s, Joshua’s warm, princely smell, something salty and clean, curling around him even among all the flowers. He is so close, chest pressed against Minghao’s back, that Minghao can practically feel his heartbeat. His own thunders in his body, and he’s almost certain that Joshua can hear it. Minghao thinks he might want him to. “I have much to thank them for as well.”

“Oh?”

“You’re here with me,” Joshua says simply, and Minghao turns in his arms. His lips are quirked in a lopsided smile when he says, “I have no need for wishes. Only gratitude and action.”

Minghao’s heartbeat gallops out of his chest, one thousand horses stampeding across the continent of his body, making a roadmap of his nerves. Joshua is so close, making no move to step away. A gentle breeze could sway them, and to any onlookers it might appear as though they were dancing, nose to nose, hip to hip. Joshua reaches up, a flower in hand, and tucks it into the braid at the crown of Minghao’s head, threading its stem through the knots and pulling it taut with a satisfied look.

“I do so like the idea of a prince who takes action,” Minghao breathes, and watches Joshua’s smile transform his face even further, then watches it disappear as he tilts himself up to kiss Minghao.

It doesn’t feel like kissing a prince, because Minghao very quickly forgets that he is kissing one. Both of Joshua’s hands are at his waist, warm and steadying, and everything smells of gardenia and wallflower blossom. Joshua kisses perfectly, petal-soft lips and delicacy, and it is so, _so_ easy for Minghao to let himself get swept up in this dream, to melt into this fantasy and let himself be kissed by someone who likes the way he dances, the way he speaks, the way he thinks. One of Joshua’s hands slides into the back of his hair between the hungry presses of their mouths, gently pushing dark locks off Minghao’s face and caressing the curve of his cheek with a tenderness Minghao doesn’t know how to accept.

They part with breathless synchronicity, and faster than he has ever changed his mind before Minghao takes back everything he thought. Joshua shining up at him, warm brown eyes on his after they’ve kissed, is the most magical thing Minghao has ever seen.

There is no contest.

Minghao’s chest aches. Why can’t every night be like tonight? Whirled around the dance floor in the arms of a handsome prince with gentle eyes and gentle hands and a gentle heart that no one else has ever asked to see? His hand moves up to the crown of his head, and he pulls it back a little when his fingertips brush the velvet-soft petals of the flower. He doesn’t want to crush it.

“What kind of flower is this?”

“Wallflower. I spent my childhood close to the ocean and missed the way they smelled. One perk of being a prince, I suppose, is being able to conjure a memory like magic with a single word.” Joshua laughs sheepishly. “It must sound foolish.”

Minghao thinks of his mother’s paintings, of butterflies gliding through dark canvas into Minghao’s heart. “No, it doesn’t. I know exactly what that feels like.”

He follows Joshua’s hand to the end of its line, where he’s gesturing to a burst of pink-orange flowers like the sunset, long past by now. Their scent is rich, fragrant. It sticks to the insides of Minghao’s lungs, lingering with a feeling that he is getting to know something about Joshua that no one else knows. 

Minghao hasn’t been to the sea since he was a child, but he can hear the water pour from the fountain, distant music on the breeze, and can almost imagine it’s waves, rocking to and fro over his bare feet. He can see his mother’s hands unspooling a kite, take a fistful of water just to sieve out a shell, rub his legs together to slough off wet sand. Joshua must have similar memories, must cherish them similarly. The thought solidifies something in Minghao’s chest that he wasn’t certain wouldn’t fly away.

Minghao lets his fingers run over the petals of nearby roses, but cannot tear himself away from the wallflowers.

Nose buried in petals, Minghao almost misses it when Joshua says quietly, wondrously, “How are you so beautiful?”

The moment it registers Minghao stumbles a little, fingers catching on thorns, and he hisses and brings his red fingertips to his mouth. “Wh—”

Heat flashes up Minghao’s spine again, embarrassment and surprise like lightning forking out to his ears, his cheeks, and his aching fingertips. He’s sure he looks as shocked and mortified as he feels.

The way Joshua is looking up at him is disarming. Could be charming, the smile playing at the corners of his lips and in the glimmer of his eyes, but it’s so open. All princely pretense is gone, and Minghao doesn’t know why, but he trusts him. Trusts it. 

His mouth still remembers the feeling of Joshua’s. Minghao thinks the chances are low that it will ever forget. He wonders if he can get away with stealing another, the only royal relic he’ll get to carry home with him tonight.

Joshua’s head is tilted just so, eyes soft on Minghao. It’s like everything is thrown into silence, a held breath. A whistle sounds in the distance.

And then, with flashes and bangs, the sky erupts into fireworks, colors exploding in the air, the sparkling fallout reflected in Joshua’s golden face, and Minghao’s heartrate kicks back into action, panic and fear starting to set in. He shakes his head, starts to grab for what few belongings he can see: his crumpled invitation, a shoe, the brass key to his window—

_What time is it? It can’t be—already?_

“You’re beautiful,” Joshua repeats, slightly louder over the sparks and crackles, but no less thunderous. 

It stuns Minghao in his tracks, his frantic hands paused where he’s trying to gather his things as he absorbs the earnest, confident way Joshua offers it, like it’s of the utmost importance that Minghao hear it.

At Minghao’s subdued reaction Joshua laughs, eyes crinkling endearingly. Minghao tries to tuck the sound away in his heart but shakes his head again.

“What, no one’s called you beautiful before?” 

Minghao knows he means it teasingly, flirtatiously, but Joshua is right. No one ever has.

 _Smart,_ maybe. _I don’t have to worry about you. You have a good head on your shoulders. You can do anything, my darling boy,_ the pride in his mother’s voice, faded and faraway as it sounds.

 _Selfish,_ maybe. His father’s voice thundering, _Don’t I deserve to be happy? Think of someone but yourself for once!_

 _Ungrateful,_ maybe. _After everything I’ve done for you, and it’s never enough,_ his stepmother glowers. _I am so tired of your passive-aggression!_

But beautiful?

The fireworks light Joshua’s face up, rainbowed, each color more handsome than the last, and Minghao is desperate to remember the throw of each hue on his cheekbones. When the display ends it’s all over, and Minghao doesn’t want this night to be over.

All the more reason he needs to leave while he still can. Before the illusion shatters and it’s all too late.

“I’m sorry, Joshua, I—I have to go.”

Minghao presses a hand to Joshua’s face. He wants to remember the way he feels, wants to say _thank you,_ but doesn’t know how. The curve of Joshua’s cheek is soft in the cradle of Minghao’s hand, and Minghao bids himself forget the way it feels like they fit together perfectly. 

To Minghao’s horror, Joshua turns his face into Minghao’s palm, nose brushing along the edge of his thumb, and presses a kiss to the hummingbird skin on the inside of his wrist. The gentle catch of his soft lips on Minghao’s pulse feels like an apology returned, and for whatever reason, Minghao knows suddenly that Joshua isn’t going to try and stop him. Minghao is certain that his worry and regret are painted like oils across his face, the irony not lost on him that his heart is splayed across his sleeve the most when he is trying to disguise himself. That Joshua sees through him must be cast aside.

The world feels narrowed to the place where Joshua’s eyelashes flutter shadows of liquid gold under his eyes. “Can I see you again?” he asks softly.

A question that ought to send a heart alight, and Minghao doesn’t know how to even begin to answer it. Adrenaline feels like nausea, and Minghao is sick to his stomach that all he wants is to stay, to bare himself to Joshua in his poorest parts, in every sense of the word.

But he can’t put that obligation on Joshua, not when he has so much responsibility of his own to bear.

The fireworks boom louder; a grand finale.

Minghao closes his eyes, traces his thumb over Joshua’s lips and up to his cheekbone, and says, “Goodbye, Joshua,” before turning on bare feet and fleeing, the flower Joshua tucked into the braid along the crown of his head and the feeling of Joshua’s hand on his waist the only things he can take with him.

•

Minghao learned when he was young that there is no point in holding out for true love, that it never really lasts even if you’re lucky enough to get a taste of it at all. The little clay pot he keeps tucked away, tangled under the roots of the willow behind the house, is more than sufficient evidence of that.

Fate will tear you apart just as easily as it brought you together.

Fate tears at your heart the way it tears at your fine clothes as you run back to your parents’ house, a barefooted pounding on gravel and sand and dirt as your glittering memory disappears off your back, and calls forth a night shower just strong enough to dissolve your slipper and invitation into scales falling like rainbowed droplets from your fingers before your very eyes, leaving you with nothing but a flower in your hair and a rusty key in your hand.

So Minghao is resigned, realism settling back into his bones as he throws himself back into his work, eschewing any romantic notion that tries to linger on his mind and pull him into a field of clouds. 

One night. It was only one night. Minghao can’t hold out—hope, or anything even close to it. But when the sky grows dark and he lies down on his bedroll and stares up at the ceiling, he’s unable to chase away the memory of Joshua’s gentle voice and gentler hands, the way that Joshua’s hand at the small of his back fit so perfectly, the way something lit up firework inside his chest when they made eye contact, the shattered expression on Joshua’s face when Minghao made his untimely escape.

He cannot linger there. It’s the stuff of childhood fantasy, to imagine that you could win over a prince and he could love you back, that your life can change because of a single night, a single kiss. It’s nothing but nonsense to think that a prince could be so enamored by a few whirls around the floor, surely no different than any other day. It’s all fanciful reverie, vivid daydreams that leave you aching all over like tilling the field.

He instead throws the sense memories into a tinderbox in the middle of his soul, allowing the realization to fuel him day after day as he wakes up early, completes his daily chores, and then heads into town.

Minghao doesn’t think about what he would say, were he to run into the prince again, but if he did he thinks he might start with a _thank you,_ for giving him the last push he needed to finally try to forge a path all his own. His apprenticeship is hard work, the labor bearable, and after a few days his small pouch starts to fill, the silk of it jingling with coin, and the weight of it starts to feel less like a burden and more like freedom on the horizon, heavy with the promise of fulfillment out of the shadow of his family. It eases some of his anxieties that he has some independence even as he still lives under their roof, that he will someday be no longer beholden to their _generosity._

He can’t say, however, that it fulfills his soul. _Acceptable_ is one matter, _bearable,_ or _decent,_ but none of them substitutes for _satisfying._ But if Minghao keeps his body moving, he will have no time to find himself wanting. So he does just that.

“Stop trying to distract yourself,” Soonyoung burbles one morning, fins waving in the shallows near the bank.

Minghao kicks a bare foot into the river, sending the pocket of water where Soonyoung is swimming into a rollicking rapid, and Soonyoung’s disgruntled bubbling is drowned out by the rush of water and the rush of blood in Minghao’s ears.

“You’re working so hard,” Soonyoung bemoans several days later, voice skipping over the surface of the river like a smooth, flat stone.

Minghao raises an eyebrow as he kneels into the silt, letting the river water run through the sieve into his vessel. “And when did you decide to start decrying hard work?”

Soonyoung flips himself with surprising agility onto Minghao’s pan, letting the clean water rush over his dense, gold-orange body. “When I saw it start to wear at you.”

With a cupped hand, Minghao spoons more fresh water over Soonyoung’s shimmering scales, and Soonyoung closes his little eyes in satisfaction, opening them again only when Minghao says, half to a laugh, “I’ve only been at it for a few weeks. I’m hardly decrepit.”

“It’s not about the duration, but the spirit,” Soonyoung declares, and hurls himself back into the water.

“He’s looking for you, you know,” Soonyoung splashes the next week, and Minghao’s grip on his jug falters.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

A whirlpool has never sounded so smug. When it settles, Soonyoung is still the size of two hands, golden scales glittering with sincerity, and he insists, “Word travels fast on the water. He’s tearing the city apart desperately searching for _‘that beautiful boy with a laugh like bells, eyes like glass, hands like the river.’_ Mighty curious, I think.”

Minghao feels that vicious horror, hope, spring forth in his chest, and his instinct is to draw a sword and beat it back with wild swings, no discipline. “That could be anyone. Don’t be cruel.”

Soonyoung lets out a frustrated stream of bubbles. “Is it cruel to share the truth?”

“It is cruel to tend hope where there should be none,” Minghao replies, face cast toward the sun to hopefully burn off the moisture threatening to gather at the corners of his eyes.

“To tend it means it must already be growing, Minghao.” 

Soonyoung offers it gently, swaying under the breeze like the surface of the water, but it stings like a slap. Minghao chooses not to reply, setting the lid back on his jug and hoisting it over his shoulders again. “Goodbye, Soonyoung. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

It is a credit to how upset Minghao must appear that Soonyoung doesn’t try to stop him, nor offers him a parting word.

 _Utterly impossible,_ Minghao thinks. There is not a shadow of a doubt in his mind that Prince Joshua would prefer someone with more poise, with higher standing, with a gentler laugh and a less deliberate manner. It’s outrageous, to think that anyone, much less a prince, much less _the_ prince, would dedicate weeks on end to scour the land for him. The slosh of the water at his back does little to soothe the idea that that effort undertaken, to ride a horse wet just to knock on every door, might be for him. Or for someone else. He’s not sure which would be worse.

Minghao lets out a long exhale as he crosses the field, reeds brushing his ankles below the thin linen of his pants, and when he makes it around to the front of the house he is greeted by his father’s wife glowering at the sight of him.

“You’re up early,” Minghao says with some surprise, lifting the vessel off his back and lowering it to the ground carefully.

“Don’t be rude, Myungho, we have distinguished guests,” she hisses through her teeth and her pasted-on smile that might as well be more of a grimace for all its sincerity.

Minghao dips his head with the minimum deference, apologizing quietly and peering around her body into the house through the doorway. _Guests?_

His stepmother seems uncharacteristically snappish, saving her false sweetness for their company, he presumes. “Your head stays down and your mouth stays shut.”

“Yes, Mother,” Minghao replies dutifully, and follows her into the house, eyes downcast toward the back of her ratted-up hair, a good two and a half heads shorter than him.

“And who is this?” a voice asks as they enter. He sounds intrigued, so Minghao glances up, the perked eyebrow of the man who spoke transforming his admittedly beautiful face into something evaluating and intimidating. He’s staring at Minghao, eyes climbing the ladder of his body, appraising his threadbare clothes with the scrutiny befitting his—

Befitting his station. Minghao’s blood slows like syrup as he realizes that the two men are royal attendants. Guards, possibly, from the looks of one of them, a strong, dimpled thing with a gentle smile that makes Minghao wonder if they have a _good guard, bad guard_ dynamic perfected. If not, they might do well to consider it. It may prove highly effective.

“Our son. I apologize for his inconsiderate lateness.”

Minghao shuts his eyes for a long moment, lets the simpering overcompensation roll over him like water off a duck’s back, and tries to get a foot on the throat of the hope springing up into his chest. If these attendants are here, then maybe Soonyoung was right. How long have they been searching?

It doesn’t matter. There’s no way they’ll find what they’re looking for here.

“It’s no trouble. We’ve waited far longer before. Is he the only young person in your household?”

Minghao’s stepmother stutters, trying to temper her indignance at being implied too old to capture the prince’s eye with a stammered, “Well, I—”

“I’m sorry, Seungcheol, I missed it, Kkumcheoreom had a stone in her hoof. Who do we have here?”

A third figure emerges through the doorway, and Minghao’s body seizes instantly, like when he fell into the winter-frosted river as a child.

“Oh, don’t concern yourself much, your Highness. That’s just Minghao,” she laughs, high and tight and _fake,_ and Minghao wonders how quickly illness can be taken on.

If it’s immediate, Minghao is experiencing all the symptoms. His stomach is in knots. The back of his neck is feverish. He can’t breathe, his eyes drowning in the sway of Joshua’s back, the breadth of his shoulders, the dip of his waist, his profile in the midday sun, can’t _let_ himself breathe for all the water.

For the first time, Joshua says, “Minghao.” It’s absentminded, seemingly steeled for disappointment. His eyes are trained not on Minghao’s, drinking him in like he has been wandering the Gobi desert, but on the—oh, God—the slipper in Seungcheol’s careful hand, embroidery glimmering like the scales of the fish it came from, gold as the crown on his head. Minghao isn’t sure whether he wants those eyes to find his. He’s not sure what he would do.

The sound of his name in Joshua’s beautiful mouth alone is nearly too much to bear.

“Ming—hao?” It’s cracked in two when Joshua says it again, because he finds Minghao’s face halfway through.

It’s the sun breaking open clouds, a tide nudging against the shore, when Joshua’s expression changes. He doesn’t register it at first, some sort of resignation settled into the lines of his face, but then he’s blinking, clearing fog, and a smile soft like the sky melts over his features, open and light and beautiful. 

It’s like there are no attendants flanking him, no stepmother simpering in the corner, no one but them. It’s like stepping into a garden and hearing music swell. Like kissing a prince, surrounded by petals.

Minghao can’t breathe.

Minghao turns on the ball of his foot and sprints out of the room, running from Joshua for the second time.

He can’t imagine Joshua’s disappointment when the shock clears, when Joshua finds out that the fine man from a finer family he was probably expecting to marry is just him.

Gasping breaths echo between Minghao’s knees where his face is tucked in, curled up in the garden, the roots of his mother’s tree winding around his bare feet. _I wish I could tell you what’s going on. I wish I could ask you what to do._

_I wish you could meet him._

Shudders wrack Minghao’s spine, and between deep, shaking inhales he brushes at the dirt at the base of the tree, unearthing the small clay pot. His mother’s necklace glimmers at the bottom, three pink beads aligned like two careful hands around his beating heart. Nestled in the pool of silver chain is a wallflower, petals blushing orange and pink. Minghao fishes it out and looks at it cradled in his hands, staring so long into the petals his vision swims, everything around him dyed warm and dreamlike.

Even just holding it flares that horrible hope like flint in his heart. Is it still stupid to hope when hope bears the face of someone one room away?

Each time he swallows is more difficult than the last, and Minghao’s next breath sticks in his throat at the soft sound of footsteps in dirt, muffled a little. Bare feet in soil. Minghao cups his hands together, shrouding the flower in the space between his palms, careful not to press it flat.

“Forgive me if I sound like a pompous royal, but I thought I got this right,” Joshua says, voice gentle like his footfall. No other sound follows but for the breeze caressing the field, the distant rush of the river. Joshua wandered out to find him by himself, leaving everyone else behind, asking if he had it wrong. What kind of prince—? What kind of _man—?_

Minghao’s voice is muffled when he replies into his knees, “My shoe fell apart. Fish scales don’t keep very well, as you might imagine.” 

“I’m glad I took such care with the one you left me, then.”

The light changes a little, and Minghao allows himself a glance, only to find Joshua toe to toe with him, feet soft in the soil where it’s still loose from Minghao’s frantic hands.

A shuffle, and the sun filters back through the leaves, dappling Joshua’s golden features with late-afternoon light. His face is gentle as he lets one knee sink into the earth, thoughtful as he trails his eyes over Minghao’s curled-up figure. Joshua looks peaceful here, natural, at ease, the way he did in the gardens, the green stones in his crown like leaves on a vine. Flowers bloom on his cheeks, pink on the apples, and Minghao is struck suddenly by the terrible, visceral reminder of just how handsome Joshua is up close.

At the ball Minghao had music and merriment to shroud his heartbeat. Here there is nothing. No costume, no magic, just bare feet and bared heart.

He daren’t look again, no matter how desperate he is, for fear that Joshua will be looking back.

“Why are you here?” Minghao asks quietly.

There’s a soft rush of air, the ghost of a laugh through Joshua’s nose, and a sigh. The gentle click of a tongue, an idea forming itself into words.

“I feel like I shouldn’t say I’m as surprised as you are,” Joshua starts, something playful at the edges that makes Minghao remember the taste of his laughter against his tongue, “But I am surprised. Surprised at myself, I guess.”

Joshua is so full of surprises. It’s surprise enough that he’s even here, when Minghao wished so strongly to forget his face, and even more strongly to touch it again.

Joshua must take Minghao’s silence as encouragement, going on with careful words like footsteps, “After the ball I was surprised at myself for the depth of my feelings toward a man that I had just met that night. The council has spent years throwing beautiful people at me. And I’ve done my duty, made conversation and doled out attention and tried to chase an emotion I didn’t know was real. I’ve met people who are intelligent, who are kind, who are lovely, but none so like the man I met that night.”

Minghao’s mind trips over itself to revisit that night, Joshua’s voice calling him _beautiful,_ feeling so removed from the concept that his breath comes in chopped exhales like leeks.

“It came as a surprise—no, a shock, I think,” Joshua laughs, a warm thing that swishes over Minghao’s feet like the riverbank in the summer, “that I was so serious about this. That all I wanted was to race through the kingdom to find you. My advisors… What was it they said? Intense?” More laughter, aching in Minghao’s chest. _“‘Singularly focused and unyielding,’_ I think,” he says, with a certain pressed-mouth expression that makes Minghao want to trace its shape with his own mouth.

Joshua takes a breath, eyes roaming Minghao’s face. His knuckles dragging gently over the top of Minghao’s foot, he lets his fingertips brush Minghao’s ankle. The touch is so gentle, so purposeful, that it’s nearly unbearable, but Minghao cannot tear his eyes away. He isn’t wearing gloves. The action steals the breath from Minghao’s lungs, that Joshua has the soles of his feet sunk into the same dirt as Minghao, that his warm, princely hands might wish to hold not golden slippers but bare feet. Minghao, of the earth.

“I have tried to be someone who is easygoing, who is generous and kind. I have taken everything about being a prince in stride, but it came so easily. Suddenly I found myself wanting to do more, wanting so badly to be more.”

_More what? More than this? More than a prince? More than wonderful, a dream come alive?_

“I started knocking on doors and running my attendants ragged looking for this man no one seemed to know,” Joshua confesses earnestly. “It was weeks of seeing your face in blooms, in paintings, in strangers. I couldn’t take it anymore. Anyone else would be making a fool of themselves were they not so intent.” His smile wobbles back onto his face, a confession in and of itself. “I’m sure I’m making a decent fool of myself anyway.”

Minghao nods. “You are,” he manages, just to see Joshua’s smile widen and his eyes turn to crescents like the moon on water. 

Joshua is a fool, to give so much of himself away to Minghao when he has kept it all to himself for so long. Doesn’t he realize that Minghao might tuck it inside his heart and never let it go? That perhaps he already has?

His thumb runs over the flower’s petals between his hands, velvet like the delicate curve of Joshua’s cheek. If this is all Minghao will get, he will cherish it.

“What do you have?” Joshua asks gently, and Minghao curls his fingers tighter over it, a cage to a bird he’s worried will sing an incriminating song. “It’s all right if you don’t want to show me.”

Minghao’s hands tremble. He can feel Joshua’s breath on his knuckles but can’t bring himself to look into his face as he unfurls his fingers. On his palm the flower sits, carefully preserved as though freshly plucked from the royal garden. Its petals are slightly shrunken but otherwise just as vibrant as the night it was tucked into his braid, fingers gentle on his temple and gentler on his waist.

There’s the most delicate intake of breath, a gasp like a breeze, and then Joshua’s hand is moving, fingertips touching Minghao’s like the first bloom of spring before alighting on the soft sunset petals of the wallflower.

“You kept it.” He sounds as incredulous as Minghao feels looking at him again, so close he can count his eyelashes, can smooth a thumbprint over his cheekbones and tell him—

Tell him what? That he’s no better than everyone else who came to the ball, who caught one glimpse of Prince Joshua in his finery and let himself dream about hands in his and lips on his and happily ever afters? That he ought to go home and find a more suitable match? That he isn’t worth the trouble?

That he wants to be what Joshua imagines he is, to lean forward and share the second of what could be a happy lifetime of kisses, but knows he can’t?

“Minghao,” Joshua says, “Why are you crying?”

His eyes are so gentle, one thumb soft on the petals of the wallflower, the other on a divot made by Minghao’s kneecap. Minghao’s throat is thick, his cheeks riverbanks, until all his wishes are swept downstream like golden fish. Like golden slippers.

“Minghao,” Joshua says again, like his name means something, tastes like wine and dreams in his mouth. “Minghao, do you love me?”

“You have a terrible knack for asking me questions I can’t answer,” says Minghao wetly, gnawing at the inside of his lower lip.

“Can’t, or won’t?”

Joshua’s hand moves a little on the threadbare knee of Minghao’s pants as he adjusts his body, settling in front of Minghao on both knees instead of the one. It’s both frustrating and devastating, a knot drawing tight in his stomach, that Minghao can’t decide whether to mourn the loss of the more romantic position or to commit to memory this more suggestive one. Either way, his heart beats roses in his ears.

Minghao remains silent as Joshua sweeps the wallflower from his hand and cradles it in his own.

“Minghao?” asks Joshua, quietly urging a response.

“You keep saying my name.”

“I wish you had given it sooner, it would have been a lot less trouble to find you.”

“See?” Minghao accuses. “I am trouble for you.”

Somehow Joshua is smiling, at Minghao’s contrariness or indignance, he’s not sure. _Please don’t let him find me charming._ As though he can hear Minghao’s prayer, or perhaps deciding to be characteristically generous, Joshua poses a hypothetical instead: “What would your answer be if I were someone else?”

“More impossible questions.”

“What do you mean?”

“Impossible,” Minghao says, sorrow shaking his voice and beating laughter out like a dusty rug, “that I could imagine being in love with someone else.”

The pain inflicted upon himself when Minghao spits out his reply is worth it a million times over, he would bear it again and again, if only to watch Joshua’s beautiful face transform once more into this: something truly extraordinary, something almost lovestruck.

Joshua sets the flower down beside his feet, a hand’s width away, laying it gentle in a thumbprint, a bed of soft, loose dirt, and kicks up onto his knees to catch Minghao’s eyes. “You love me.”

In lieu of affirming what Joshua already knows Minghao tries to look away, up toward the soft vine of the willow, through the back gate toward the field, further still toward the river, but Joshua’s thumbs in the divots under his cheekbones tilt his face back down, the pads of his fingers sticking to his skin where it’s wet with tacky, half-dry tears.

“Will you look at me?” Joshua whispers.

Despite himself, Minghao looks.

And Joshua kisses him.

Minghao’s gasp is swallowed in Joshua’s kiss, where his line of vision is narrowed simply to princely eyelashes, fluttered shut with satisfaction, some hunger sated by the press of lips together. If a first kiss is new, pigment concentrated in a tightly furled bud, all condensed potential, a second kiss is full bloom, petals reaching toward the sun to absorb every nourishing ray. The ache in Minghao’s chest unfurls like a banner, spreads out like a flower, colors showing themselves in the way he clings to Joshua, allows himself to be held, kisses Joshua back like he never thought he would have the chance.

He never thought he would have the chance. Yet here Minghao is, face cradled between Joshua’s warm, broad palms, lips moving against Joshua’s like bodies on a ballroom floor. In perfect time.

“You love me,” Joshua says delightedly as he pulls away, face and neck and chest flushed becomingly. Oh, he is so unfairly handsome.

Minghao nods, feeling the world spin off-tilt around him. Everything is so saturated. He’s dazed, lips tingling with memory. He wants to kiss Joshua again. Can he convince Joshua to kiss him again, and again, until his desperate persuasion ends in—

“Marry me,” Joshua says, like it’s the first time his tongue has met the syllables, with pleasant surprise, like the idea just struck him and he’s proud to crow it.

“What?”

“Marry me,” Joshua repeats, more sure now, smile widening.

“Joshua!” Minghao’s heartbeat is thundering through every part of his body, and he just—just needs a moment.

Joshua’s grin is beatific, rapturous, and his hands are still roaming Minghao’s face, in his hair, thumbs delicate on his cheeks, his jaw, his lips, and Minghao lets himself be touched like he’s precious, like he’s golden, even as he feels like fishscales, rainbowed and fragile and one moment from dissolving.

“You don’t know what you’re asking of me,” says Minghao, lips parted against the warm sweetness of the pad of Joshua’s thumb.

The skin between Joshua’s eyebrows creases briefly. “Is it a hardship?”

“To love you? To—to think of marrying you?” Minghao’s voice disappears. It is easy as breathing, as drowning, to love Joshua, to imagine being his. He cannot answer. “A better question would be what you think I am, to think that it wouldn’t be a hardship for you.”

Joshua’s smile slips. Minghao misses it instantly. “Minghao, I came to your house. I knocked on every door in this kingdom looking for you. You take me for a fool if you think I don't love you as you are.”

“As I am? What do you know of how I am?”

The wrinkle in Joshua’s forehead moves, crow’s feet alighting at the corners of his eyes instead as though he’s happy to have the opportunity to answer such a question. It is a miracle he hasn’t taken it rudely, but he seems to see through Minghao like rice paper.

“I know you are beautiful,” he starts, and when Minghao sighs disbelievingly, moves his hand from Minghao’s face into his lap, tangling their fingers like octopus arms, stuck together and inseparable. “I spent dozens of sleepless nights wondering if you were the invention of my dreams, if I loved you because you are beautiful, or if you are beautiful because I love you.”

The ache in Minghao’s chest grows a season in a moment, strong roots and tendrils across his whole body. “You love me?”

Mouth ajar as a stable door as he had prepared to continue, Joshua blinks. “I—did I not say it?”

Minghao shakes his head, giggling far less tearfully now.

 _“Joshua Hong,”_ Joshua mutters in self-admonishment, and Minghao’s laughter picks up its step, a carriage horse freed to a canter, and Joshua’s stunned, ashamed face softens at its edges, fondness coloring his expression like a spring morning. It’s soft, gentle like hands on his waist, like hands in his hair, like hands in his, when Joshua says earnestly, “Minghao, I love you.”

He sounds regal and serious, as though delivering an address. But as Minghao laughs, Joshua’s insistence fades, and he tilts a smile up at Minghao. 

_Princes should want for nothing,_ Minghao thinks, as he rocks back on his heels and then launches himself forward, pressing Joshua bodily into the cradle of the soft soil to deliver his answer with a kiss, a field of flowers springing up in an instant.

_And neither should I._

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!
> 
> find me on [twitter](http://www.twitter.com/pixiepowerao3) and [curiouscat](http://www.curiouscat.me/pixiepower/)!


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